Dear Editor,
I would like to reply again in part to the letters regarding pavements and parking. I noticed the other day at a well-known supermarket that they have converted their disabled spaces to ‘disabled and pregnant’ spaces. This is really ridiculous.
Pregnancy is not a disability. By making disabled spaces pregnancy spaces as well, it will mean that many pregnant people who are more than capable of walking and perhaps only a few months gone, are using these spaces and taking vital spaces from those who really need them.
The Blue badge system is European, so I cannot understand why it is not more widely enforced and spaces are not monitored and people fined as they are in the UK when they park in a disabled space.
People with disabilities and an illness find it difficult to go out and, when they do, they want to know that they can park. I feel quite cross that a pregnant person would take a disabled space when someone who is ill really needs that space, therefore limiting that person’s ability to go shopping.
The other issue is the parking on pavements. The GNR are very keen to fine you for not having your papers or crossing a white line but why are they not enforcing that people do not park on the pavements that are there for people to walk on, push pushchairs or access in a wheelchair.
The definition of a pavement is: a hard-surfaced path for pedestrians alongside and a little higher than a road, a hard smooth surface, especially of a public area or thoroughfare.
I do not understand why they build pavements, as they are clearly just an extension of the road for cars.
These pavements should be cleared of cars and parking should not be allowed.
Rachel Shepherd, By email
